창세기 49:12의 주석

חכלילי [HIS EYES] ARE RED — חכלילי denotes redness, as the Targum renders it: they shall become red. Similar is (Proverbs 23:29) “who hath redness (חכלילות) of eyes?” Redness of eyes is associated with wine because that is what usually happens to those who drink much wine — their eyes become red.

HIS EYES ARE ‘CHACHLILI’ (FROM WINE). The Commentators¹⁷⁰Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and R’dak. say that the word chachlili denotes redness, and it means that his eyes will become red from drinking much wine. Of similar meaning is the verse, Who hath ‘chachliluth’ (redness) of the eyes?¹⁷¹Proverbs 23:29.
Now it appears to me that this is a case of a word whose letters are transposed,¹⁷²Thus, instead of the order of the letters being cheth, kaf, lamed, it should be understood as if it were written: kaf, cheth, lamed, suggesting the act of painting, as will be explained further. it being derived from the expression, Thou didst paint (‘kachalt’) thine eyes.¹⁷³Ezekiel 23:40. The lamed is doubled — [chachlili] — as is customary in many places, and it denotes the process of painting eyes which is known and frequently mentioned in the words of our Rabbis. In Arabic also its name is “al kachul.” The verse is thus stating that Judah’s eyes are colored with wine for just as others paint them with puch (eye-paint),¹⁷⁴Jeremiah 4:30. which is the Arabic “al kachul,” so does he paint them with wine, and just as others whiten their teeth with ointments, so does he whiten them with milk, the comparison indicating the abundance of wine and milk in Judah’s land, just as Onkelos mentioned.¹⁷⁵“His mountains will be red with his vineyards, and his wine-presses will drip with wine” (Onkelos). Similar in meaning is the verse, Who hath ‘chachliluth’ of eyes,¹⁷¹Proverbs 23:29. [the letters in the word chachliluth are to be transposed to read] kachliluth” (paint), with the verse stating that the drunkard has his eyes painted by wine and he cannot hide his drunken state. It is possible that the verse is stating, “Who has coloring of eyes?” meaning “who needs to paint his eyes always? They that tarry long at the wine,¹⁷¹Proverbs 23:29. since the wine dims their eyes, causing them to tear, and be consumed away in their sockets,¹⁷⁶Zechariah 14:12. thus making it necessary for him to have his eyes constantly painted.” Scripture, in the book of Proverbs, is thus speaking of the disgrace of wine and the external evils of contentions and wounds which befall he who drinks it in abundance, while in his house there will always be the cry of “Woe” and “Alas.”¹⁷¹Proverbs 23:29. It then also mentions this specific harm which affects his body, namely, the dimming of his vision, and many other sicknesses. This is a correct interpretation and elucidation of the subject.

חכלילי, the redness of eyes is called thus.

חכלילי עינים מיין, the fifth of the identifying marks of the Messiah will be the onset of an unusually long period of economic progress, plentiful harvests, etc. This has also been predicted in Psalms 72,16 “let abundant grain be in the land to the tops of the mountains, let his crops thrive like the forest of Lebanon.” Our sages have paraphrased this in Shabbat 30 when they described the affluence in messianic days by crediting the soil of Israel with producing ready to eat rolls and garments made of the finest wool.

חכלילי עינים מיין, "He will be red-eyed from wine, etc." This is best understood as similar to Psalms 68,7: "He sets the prisoners free, safe and sound," as explained in Bamidbar Rabbah 4 that the Israelites were redeemed by G'd בכושרות, the word being divided into בכי, weeping and שירות, songs. The Egyptians did the crying, the Israelites the singing. חכלילי עינים, "red-eyed;" the colour red is reminiscent of judgments, everything connected with redness is an allusion to the power of judgment which involves the blood of one party versus the blood of his adversary. The reason Jacob said: מיין, from wine, is a reminder that judgment originates in wine, [had Adam not eaten from the tree of knowledge, i.e. the vine, judgment in the sense of retribution would have had no place on earth. Ed.]

Yaakov adds something else which is an exaggeration when he says: חכלילי עינים סותה, not only Yehudah’s clothing would be red but even his face and eyes. The word עינים describes the exterior appearance, as in Proverbs 23,29 למי חכלילות עינים? “Who suffers from redness of his eyes? The word עין, עינים, to describe an exterior appearance is also used to describe the manna in Numbers 11,7.

הכלילי עינים מיין, “red-eyed from wine;” due to the large quantities of wine he consumes his eyes will reflect the redness of that wine. Similarly, the amounts of milk consumed will be reflected in the whiteness of his teeth. Other commentators understand the word שנים as referring to the crags of a rock, suggesting that milk will be flowing from between crags in the rocks. Still other commentators interpret the word חכלילי as a comparative mode, meaning that the eyes will be even redder than wine, and the teeth even whiter than milk. Nachmanides says that the meaning is exactly the reverse, i.e. citing Ezekiel 23,40 כחלת עיניך, “you daubed your eyes.” The letter ל was repeated here, something not unusual. The message Yaakov conveys is that whereas normally women daub their eyes with a bluish coloured cosmetic, Yehudah will employ reddish looking cosmetic for that purpose. Similarly, whereas others whiten their teeth by applying cosmetics, Yehudah will use milk instead. The entire verse is a euphemism for the abundance of both wine and milk that Yehudah will experience in his territory. The wine will drip from his eyes like tears, so that envious youngsters will have to use cosmetics constantly in order to compete.

Er sieht dieses sein letztes Geschlecht: sieht die Wiederkehr des Paradieses auf Erden, die ganze Natur paradiesisch verjüngt, die Menschengröße nicht in Unterjochung und Zerstörung der Menschen, an dem Gewande ihrer Großen kein Tropfen Menschenblut, und er sieht dies Geschlecht — (הכלי: nur bei Augen, glühende Glänze) — feurigeren Auges als Wein, weißer an Zähnen als Milch — Lebensmut und Lust sprüht ihnen aus den Augen, die Weiße der Zähne zeugt von ihrer Gesundheit. —

חכלילי עינים מיין, ‘he will be red-eyed from wine;” having drunk a great deal of wine, the colour of his face will reflect this. (Compare Samuel I 16,12). [The comment is complimentary in nature. Ed.]

מחלב [AND THE WHITENESS OF HIS TEETH IS] FROM MILK— because of abundance of milk, for there will be in his land good pasture for herds of flock. The verse is therefore to be explained as follows: There will be redness of eyes because of abundance of wine and there will be whiteness of teeth because of abundance of milk (the ם of of מיין and מחלב is not the מ comparativum: “His eyes shall be redder than wine etc.”). According to the Targum עינים means mountains which are called thus because from thence as a point of observation one can see afar off (i.e. it translates by “the mountains are red with wine”). He (Onkelos) further translates the verse in a different way, taking עינים in the sense of fountains and continuous flow of the wine-press. The word נעווהי which Onkelos uses signifies his wine-presses. It is an Aramaic word that occurs in (Avodah Zarah 74b): “as for a tank (נעוא), cleanse it with hot water”. (The translation of the Targum is therefore: “His vats will stream with wine”.) The words יחורון בקעתה his valleys (the places wore mountains are, as it wore, cloven, בקע) are the Targum of [לבן] שנים, taking the second word in the sense of שני הסלעים rocky crags (cf. 1 Samuel 14:4 and Rashi on פי החירות Exodus 14:2 — where פִי = שִׁנַּיִם — and the reference there to the valley between the rocks).

ולבן-שנים, the result of drinking milk produces this whiteness of the teeth. We find a parallel expression in Song of Songs 5,1 שתיתי ייני עם חלבי, “I have drunk my wine with my milk.” Isaiah 55,1 describes a similar theme,בלא כסף ובלא מחיר יין וחלב, “(come buy). without money or any cost, wine and milk. “The word “ul-ven,” must be understood as if it had the vowels making it “ulavan.” When it is in a possessive mode, the grammar is quite in order so that it is ulven. In a similar possessive mode in Deuteronomy 32,14 we find “vachalev tzon,” describing “the chalav of sheep.”

ולבן שנים מחלב. Due to drinking a lot of milk his teeth are white. Some commentators understand the word שנים in our verse as describing the teeth-like points of the rocks being white from the drippings of excess milk by the sheep and goats. Accordingly, even these so-called teeth have to be explained allegorically, as a reference to the Messiah. [I believe that all the commentators who chose the path of interpreting Yaakov’s words allegorically, simply could not credit that he would waste his last few minutes on earth with describing mundane matters as being the essence of what he had to communicate to his children at that time, even if these words were garbed in poetic language. The sages were convinced that behind this lovely prose there must be hidden far more profound spiritual messages. Ed.]

Dies war etwas von dem אחרית הימים von welchem Jakob seinen Söhnen wohl noch ein mehreres hatte enthüllen mögen, als ihm vergönnt war. —

ולבן שנים מחלב, “and his teeth whiter than milk.” The phrase is a metaphor for wishing good health, even one’s teeth being free from white milk. We find a similar metaphor in Lamentations 4,7: צחו מחלב, “whiter than milk;”

(3) UL'VEN (WHITENESS). Like "lavan" (white). When it is in the construct case, one says "ul'ven," as from "halav" (milk), we get (Deut. 32:14) "vahalev tzon" ("milk of flocks").

To continue with the “Messianic” interpretation. אסרי לגפן עירה, the word הגפן is a metaphor for the concept of the Jewish nation, כנסת ישראל, an expression used in the same sense in Psalms 80,9 גפן ממצרים תסיע, “You transplanted a vine (the people of Israel) from Egypt.” Just as the word גפן is used as a metaphor for the Jewish people in Psalms, so the word שרקה is used in a similar sense in Jeremiah 2,21, ואנכי נטעתיך שורק כלו זרע אמת, “whereas I had planted you as a vine, all with the choicest seed.” The prophet, of course, compares the Jewish people to a vine, normally yielding excellent grapes, but somehow having become corrupted. When such vines are at their best, the grapes they produce do not even have kernels, (i.e. seedless grapes)

Yaakov continues with אסרי, this King Messiah, when he arrives, will tie together two vines, i.e. the Kingdom of Yehudah and the Kingdom of Ephrayim who had been bitter competitors until then, as predicted in clear language by Ezekiel 37,19 ועשיתם לעץ אחד”so that they will become a single stick.” The reason Yaakov chose the expression אסרי for this kind of unification can be well understood when we read in Hoseah 10,10 באסרם על שתי עוונותם, an expression used by the prophet when referring to these two kingdoms. The most effective union, one that is least likely to come undone, is the one described in Hebrew by the verb אסר and קשר respectively. עירה and בני אתונו, refer to the King Messiah of whom it has been said in Zecharyah 9,9 that he will appear riding on an ass, on a donkey foaled by a she-ass. Yaakov continues with כבס ביין לבושו, here the word לבושו is an alternate for בגדו a word also used in Psalms 45,9 an expression used in Kohelet as describing one’s words of wisdom and one’s good deeds. In other words, tangible phenomena that we are familiar with are used as substituting for meta-physical, abstract concepts by our sages and patriarchs. Yaakov refers to ביין with the vowel patach under the letter ב, meaning a specific wine as distinct from wine generally. The fragrance of good wine envelops the people who drink it. Compare Hoseah 14,8 זכרו כיין לבנון, “His scent is like the wine of Lebanon.” The wine Yaakov speaks of is well known for its fine bouquet. A similar reference to the fragrance of wine occurs in Song of Songs 7,10 וחכך כיין הטוב, “and the breath of your mouth is like the choicest wines.” We believe that the thrust of these allegorical interpretations is that if ever Yehudah were in difficulties in matters physical, then spiritual mental faculties should compensate for what he could not accomplish in the natural way. This is the definition of the Messiah in Isaiah 11,2 “the spirit of the Lord shall alight upon him; a spirit of wisdom and insight; a spirit of counsel and valor, a spirit of devotion and reverence for the Lord.” The prophet continues.והריחו ביראת ה' ולא למראה עיניו ישפוט ולא למשמע אזניו יוכיח ושפט בצדק דלים והוכיח במישור לענוי ארץ והכה ארץ בשבט פיו, וברוח שפתיו ימית רשע. “He shall sense the truth by his reverence for the Lord. He shall not judge what his eyes behold, nor decide by what his ears perceive; thus shall he judge the poor with equity and decide with justice for the lowly of the land. He shall strike down with the rod of his mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.” ובדם ענבים סותה, Yaakov mentions the appearance as something comparable to how it appears after it has been laundered, whereas he describes the wine as symbolic of a pleasant fragrance but here he uses it in connection with the external appearance of something. All these hyperboles are just that, a parable.

He continues: חכלילי עינים מיין ולבן שנים מחלב, having already mentioned wine as symbolising fragrance as well as symbolising an impressive appearance, he did so because he views them as the most appropriate description of something that looks pleasant and inspiring. Such a perception of what looks beautiful is also echoed in Lamentations 4,7 ”Her elect were purer than snow and whiter than milk,” and in Song of Songs 5,10 the example for such a lovely appearance is “my beloved is clear-skinned and ruddy.” The appearance of wine is most impressive and it is reddish and sparkling as described in Proverbs 23,31 “do not ogle that red wine as it lends its colour to the cup.” It is described as if giving off sparks. Pure white colour is also extolled in Exodus 24,10 when the elders before the revelation at Mount Sinai feasted their eyes on a Divine appearance described as “like a brick of sapphire, and the essence of the heavens in purity.” The whitest parts of the human body are the teeth They are praised for their whiteness also in Song of Songs 6,6 where their whiteness is compared to that of “a flock of ewes climbing up from the washing pool.” [The author continues in this vein for a few more lines. Ed.] The point he is trying to make is that over and beyond any physical perfection we know of in this world, the perfection of virtues, albeit intangible, is superior to anything perfect but tangible on earth. Hence the superiority of the Messiah with his virtues and supernatural qualities. Yaakov, using his prophetic insights, addresses each of his sons with the degree of prophetic insight he has been granted in describing the future in store for him.